If any of your women commit indecency, call in four witnesses from among yourselves against them, if they testify, confine them to their houses till death overtakes them or till Allah makes for them a way. 15 If any two people commit fornication, punish them. If they repent and reform, let them go. God is All-forgiving and All-merciful. 16 Verily, God's acceptance of repentance relates only to those who do evil out of ignorance and then repent before their time runs out: and it is they unto whom God will turn again in His mercy - for God is all-knowing, wise; 17 But (He does not accept) the repentance of those who continue indulging in evil until death draws near and they say: "We now repent;" nor of those who die disbelieving. For them We have a grievous retribution in wait. 18 O YOU who have attained to faith! It is not lawful for you to [try to] become heirs to your wives [by holding onto them] against their will; and neither shall you keep them under constraint with a view to taking away anything of what you may have given them, unless it be that they have become guilty, in an obvious manner, of immoral conduct. And consort with your wives in a goodly manner; for if you dislike them, it may well be that you dislike something which God might yet make a source of abundant good. 19 If you want to take another wife in place of the one you are married to, then even if you have given her a talent of gold, do not take back a thing. Would you take it away by slandering and using unjust means? 20 And how could you take it away after you have given yourselves to one another, and she has received a most solemn pledge from you? 21 And do not marry women your fathers married unless it is a thing of the past; surely that was an indecency, hated, and a way of evil. 22